Virtue Online Uses Ichabod Photoshop with Jefferts-Schori Interview Posted from Issues Etc

Ichabod Photoshop and Witty Label:
Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori

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GJ - It gives me great satisfaction to find my graphics being used elsewhere. No credit is expected. No permission is required. Not that long ago an ELCA-bishop-as-Satan graphic made its way to the bishop's staff. The bishop's staffmembers were not amused.


I have followed Virtue Online for several years. I have written to David Virtue, a man who follows the legal and doctrinal issues, reporting them carefully. He added his comments to the interview with the notation VOL. That will give readers a better perspective on the Bishop Kate disaster.


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Episcopal Presiding Bishop Spins Church and Its Future

The following interview with Katharine Jefferts Schori took place on Lutheran Public Radio withIssues, Etc. hosted by Todd Wilkens 

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org 
January 10, 2012

TODD WILKEN Issues, Etc. Host: They have been busy in the last decade or so. They say they have been listening to the "Voice of God" ... first back in the '70s they were among the first of the Protestant denominations to ordain women to the priesthood. Within the last decade they approved the ordination of active homosexuals - lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered persons -- and they have made an active and partnered gay man a bishop in one of their dioceses - Gene Robinson. So they have made the news. Why and where is The Episcopal Church headed especially with its relationship with worldwide Anglicanism? Joining us this Wednesday afternoon, January the fourth, to talk about the intersections of faith with issues like poverty, climate change and the economy is Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. She is the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church USA and author of the news book "The Heartbeat of God: Finding the Sacred in the Middle of Everything." Bishop Jefferts Schori, welcome to Issues, Etc.

WILKEN: What do you mean by that phrase "Heartbeat of God"? 

JEFFERTS SCHORI: That's how I've talked about our understanding of God's "mission" to heal the world and that when people-of-faith are engaged in that work they're participating in the lively creativity of God. 

VOL: What and where exactly is TEC healing the world? Pouring its limited resources into Haiti (largely into a cathedral) is a pittance compared to what agencies like World Vision Inc., Food for the Poor and multiple evangelically based organizations are doing in that country. Most congregations in TEC are now in double digits with the average age in the mid 60s. They are running out of time and money and they are more engaged in getting Medicare and Social Security than "healing the world." Those socially (read sexually) engaged are pushing the LGBTQI agenda with liberal bishops led by Jefferts Schori and her compliant HOB getting in the faces of dioceses like South Carolina to make them conform to their agenda.

WILKEN: On that issue of "people-of-faith" the subtitle of the book is "Finding the Sacred in the Middle of Everything." so it might sound to some like pantheism. Do you believe that the "sacred", as you define it, is found in all religions?

JEFFERTS SCHORI: Yes, I think it probably is. We're not pantheists, many Episcopalians might be understood to as "panentheists". The difference being that pantheists see everything as God and panentheists see God reflected in all of God's creation. When we talk about human beings being made in the image of God that's a piece of what we are talking about and we would extend that to all of creation. 

VOL: So Episcopalians are now panentheists. Really. Panentheism is a belief system, which posits that God exists, interpenetrates every part of nature and timelessly extends beyond it. While pantheism believes that God is the whole; in panentheism, the whole is in God. In panentheism, God is viewed as the eternal animating force behind the universe. Some versions suggest that the universe is nothing more than the manifest part of God. In some forms of panentheism, the cosmos exists within God, who in turn "pervades" or is "in" the cosmos. Panentheism claims that God is greater than the universe. Much Hindu thought is highly characterized by panentheism and pantheism. Theism, on the other hand, conceives of God as personal, present and active in the governance and organization of the world and the universe but is distinct from it. Episcopalians, by and large, that is those who have not completely lost their minds believing what Jefferts Schori, Jack Spong, William Countryman and Mott the Hoople are still orthodox in their faith. For a full and complete analysis of Jefferts Schori's book read Sarah Francis Ives, Ph. D. two articles here: http://tinyurl.com/83ndbph and here:http://tinyurl.com/7nhuupx

WILKEN: But you contrast, or appear to contrast Jesus of Nazareth with the Christ of generations and millennia to come. Is there is difference of the "Jesus of Nazareth' and "the Christ of generations and millennia to come"? 

JEFFERTS SCHORI: Christians would understand both terms. Non-Christians would not necessarily. Jesus as a human figure is someone about Whom Muslims can speak and understand and certainly recognize and revere. And people of other faith traditions would as well. They're not going to have access or interest in "the Christ of millennia to come" the way that Christians do.

VOL: Separating the Jesus of History from the Christ of Faith is an old saw. The truth is there is no dichotomy between the Christ of Faith and the Jesus of History. Anglican theologian N.T. Wright In his book Jesus and the Victory of God, Christian Origins and the Question of God, Volume 2, says that the historical Jesus is very much the Jesus of the gospels: a first century Palestinian Jew who announced and inaugurated the kingdom of God, performed "mighty works" and believed himself to be Israel's Messiah who would save his people through his death and resurrection. "He believed himself called," in other words says Wright, "to do and be what, in the Scriptures, only Israel's God did and was." So you have a choice dear readers, believe what Jefferts Schori says or N.T. Wright.

WILKEN: You talk about hearing the "Voice of God"; I think you devote a whole chapter to it. Where is The Episcopal Church USA today hearing the Voice of God? 

JEFFERTS SCHORI: OK, let me correct that. We are not The Episcopal Church in the USA. We're The Episcopal Church in 16 different nations including the United States. So we're certainly hearing the Voice of God and meeting God in Ecuador and Honduras and Venezuela and Taiwan and in Europe, as well as we are in the United States. There is an ancient understanding that God is met, perhaps most intensely in the poor and the marginalized. I know that St. Francis [of Assisi] called the poor "our treasure"; and that when we encounter the poor the marginalized, we're more likely to meet Jesus, we're more likely to see God present with us in the midst of suffering as well as joy. VOL: Prior to the year of our Lord 2006 (when Jefferts Schori was consecrated) no Presiding Bishop touted TEC's offshore ecclesiastical holdings, but with the rise of the Global South and Mrs. Jefferts Schori's face offs with Dr. Rowan Williams, she has pushed this handful of "overseas" Episcopalians to let the whole Anglican world know that she has some muscle and must be reckoned with even as TEC innovates over sexuality issues and its fortunes sink. It no doubt gives her a feeling of power. For the record TEC has a total of 487 churches in "foreign" dioceses and territories, with an overall ASA of 11,258. There are single churches almost as big as this. St. Martins Episcopal Church in Houston has 7,812 baptized members and nearly 3,000 ASA.

WILKEN: What then is The Episcopal Church hearing in that Voice of God?

JEFFERTS SCHORI: A call to attend to the people on the margins as well as creation that is being abused. Our work, as part of God's mission, is to respond to the needs of the suffering - human beings as well as the rest of creation.

VOL: TEC talk. This is spin for pushing for the acceptance of a variety of pansexual behaviors which the Global South find revolting and unacceptable and which Rowan Williams waffles over. She taunts the Archbishop for being double-minded which is usually termed a 'failure of nerve' for not coming out totally for gay priests, same-sex marriage and rites for same.

WILKEN: You also talk about climate change - manmade climate change I should say - and the Church's obligation there. Do you regard it as sinful to deny manmade climate change or to not take part in combating man's part in that change? 

JEFFERTS SCHORI: Well, human beings have certainly been responsible for accelerating the pace of climate change. I only have to look at the carbon dioxide affluent that has been produced since the Industrial Revolution to see that. I think it is incredibly short sighted, in the sense of blind, to refuse to see evidence in the change of climate. The scientific evidence is overwhelming. There are clearly people who choose not to see that. I think that is not using all the gifts that God has given us.

VOL: And she took her House of Bishops to Quito, Ecuador for an expensive gabfest, which increased the global carbon footprint enormously. She could have held a FREE conference call (dot com) with her bishops then she would never have had to see who was falling asleep listening to her whine about "marginalized peoples" and push the church's pansexual agenda one more time and listen to her liberal bromides about saving the world for God.

WILKEN: Short sighted, but is it sinful in your opinion?

JEFFERTS SCHORI: Sin, in our understanding, is separation from God. And if you cannot see the abuse that human beings have caused to creation, I think that you are in some sense separating yourself from God's creation.

WILKEN: So, is that a yes?

JFFERTS SCHORI: That's certainly a way in which I would understand it.

VOL: Sin is much more than that. It is about rebellion against God himself, against the moral order, selfishness, and unrepentance. It is about missing the mark. One might also add this: "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[a] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 8: 38-39)

WILKEN: When I spoke a moment ago and said Episcopal Church USA, you corrected me and said Episcopal Church in a number of nations. Do you make the distinction between The Episcopal Church and worldwide Anglicanism?

JEFFERTS SCHORI: We're [The Episcopal Church] a separate province of the worldwide Anglican Communion. There are 38 national or regional provinces in the Anglican Communion. We're a part of Anglicanism, but we're one part in relationship with a number of other parts. 

VOL: ...and a very small part at that. TEC now has an average weekly ASA of less than 700,000 and declining yearly. That is the size of a small diocese in Rwanda.

WILKEN: There has been some tension between The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. How would you say that tension has been created? How do you think it resolved, if possible? 

JEFFERTS SCHORI: Well, you know, churches going back to the First Century of Christianity have always been in tension, because people never share all of the same ideas and understandings. You know the first great Church fight was about whether or not Gentiles could join the "Jesus Movement". Those tensions have continued through the ages. We're not going to finish with them until the Second Coming. And they can be creative, if they are used creatively. If conflict simply results in division, then it is not creative; it's destructive, generally. But when we can stay in relationship and explore our differences and continue to dialogue about them, usually everybody grows in the process and it ends up being creative rather than destructive. 

VOL: The early church attended to Judaizers and those who wanted to keep some aspect of the law in order to be saved. The "differences" today also involve salvation issues. Dialogue is all but dead. There is already a de facto schism if not a de jure one. The vast majority of the Global South primates are in "impaired and/or broken communion" with TEC. GAFCON/FCA was formed to declare that the Global South was no longer in communion with the ABC. A Lambeth Conference and a Primates meeting in Dublin saw one third of the Archbishops of the Communion in a no show thus declaring that the Anglican Communion was broken. Whether it can be repaired with Dr. Rowan Williams still at the helm is the issue. With him gone and an Evangelical at the head of the Communion it would be a whole new ball game. What about that does Jefferts Schori not understand?

WILKEN: In 2003, I believe, you consented to the election of Gene Robinson as the first openly gay bishop in The Episcopal Church, Now that's been almost 10 years, I think. Do you have any regrets about that move? 

JEFFERTS SCHORI: I knew at the time that it would be a very difficult decision for the wider church, both in The Episcopal Church and across the world. But, no, I believe that I, and others who voted to do that, understood that we were doing that out of a sense of great faithfulness to where we are in this church and to the Call of God in the midst of it. It's not been easy, but at the same time I think that people across the [Anglican] Communion and within this [The Episcopal] Church - a number of them who disagreed with that decision have to realize that it is not a decision that has to divide a community, that we can continue to exist together in a community even if we don't agree. VOL: Total nonsense. A third of the all Anglican Primates are no longer in communion with her over the Robinson consecration and they represent nearly 80% of the entire Anglican Communion. TEC is a sideshow with only money to manipulate poor Anglican African provinces.

WILKEN: You said that the issue of whether or not to ordain active lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgendered persons should not be a "church dividing issue". But, Bishop, as you know, many disagree entirely. Dioceses, parishes, many individuals have left The Episcopal Church for that and other reasons believing that they are "church dividing issues". 

JEFFERTS SCHORI: Some people have left some congregations and some people have left some dioceses over this issue, that's correct. And, yes, they do believe that it is a "[church] dividing issue". At the same time, many people who disagreed with the decision - most people who disagreed with the decision - have remained in The [Episcopal] Church and continue to make common cause with their fellow Episcopalians in the work of healing the world. They believe that our engagement in mission together is more important than disagreement about that [homosexual] issue.

VOL: Really. Then how can she explain four entire dioceses leaving TEC, hundreds of individual churches leaving, with four bishops heading to Rome (with one now heading up the Pope's personal Ordinariate)...and millions of dollars spent on litigation for properties. Two thirds of the entire Diocese of Pittsburgh has left TEC, nearly 80% of the Diocese of Ft. Worth. Those orthodox Episcopalians who stay do so because they don't want to get into a legal battle over property issues like the Church of the Good Samaritan in Paoli, PA and prefer to remain under the radar of a revisionist bishop like Charles Bennison. Another group of Episcopalians quietly scream, "Not in my parish" and politely go their way. The doctrine of inclusion is also not for them.

WILKEN: What are the similarities, how would you describe the similarities and the differences between your church body [The Episcopal Church] and the newly formed Anglican Church in North America?

JEFFERTS SCHORI: Well, the Anglican Church in North American seems to have its primary identity as being opposed to decisions of The Episcopal Church. I certainly hope that they will come to have an identity that's positively rooted in their unique identity, and I think that when they come to do that, that we should be able to build some ecumenical relationships with them. 

VOL: That is a false characterization of ACNA. At the beginning when the AMIA was formed it was in reaction to TEC. ACNA was formed as a safe place for orthodox Episcopalians being hounded out of TEC because of TEC's theological and sexual innovations. More than 100,000 in nearly 1,000 parishes have fled TEC in the last few years and there is no sign that is letting up.

WILKEN: In the last generation - 40 years or so - The Episcopal Church has seen the ordination of women. I think that was in the early 70s. It's first openly gay bishop more recently; and the ordination of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered persons to the priesthood. Where do you see The Episcopal Church headed in the next generation - the next 40 years?

JEFFERTS SCHORI: I think the next 40 years are going to be time of significant reformation in the sense of expanding the variety of faith communities -- expanding the ways in which we "make a church" together. You can see examples of that already - things like [the] Common Cathedral Movements; where groups of people gather outside it on a regular basis for church services that those communities often serve the homeless. Where you see people who gather -- there's an example in New York City. Something called a "Dinner Church" where primary beginning of the community has been to gather to cook a meal, and out of that has grown a worshipping community. The phrase that is often used is "emergent" or "emerging church" communities, and I think we are going to see a great flourishing of that. And those communities may or may not be tied to permanent buildings in the way that most mainline denomination congregations are today.

VOL: At the present rate of decline there is every reason to believe that within 26 years The Episcopal Church will cease to exist in any sense as a denomination unless there is serious reformation, renewal and revival. Numbers don't lie. The evangelically driven ACNA will only prosper, but not without problems and "issues" like the ordination of women yet to be resolved. Narrow pathways always come with thorns and sharp rocks.

WILKEN: Do you see a connection the early 70s ordination of women [the Philadelphia 11 on July 29, 2974] to the priesthood of The Episcopal Church and the early 2000's ordination of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered persons to the priesthood?

JEFFERTS SCHORI: Yes, and I would certainly take it farther back. I think it is deeply connected with the ordinations of the first African-Americans [Absalom Jones in 1804] to this tradition and the first Native Americans [Enmegahbowh of the Ottawa Tribe in 1867] in this tradition and the first Asians [Wong Kong-chai in 1863] in this tradition. The challenge particularly in the United States, a part of our context has been expanding the understanding of what a normative human being is. And it is not just a "white man". It includes people of other ethnic origins, includes people of the other gender, it includes people of other sexual orientations. One of the significant changes in our prayer book of the late 1970s was our admission of children to [Holy] Communion before they were confirmed. You use to have to wait until you were a teenager and had been confirmed before you could come to Communion. We said: "No, children as soon as they are baptized are full members of this community." I don't know what the next iteration of that journey will look like. But I think there will be one. 

VOL: Dumbing down the Prayer Book and lowering entry requirements will not build churches, and comparing a person's skin color with same sex attractions angers a lot of Black people who don't like the comparison.

WILKEN: What do you see the central message of Scripture is, Bishop?

JEFFERTS SCHORI: Love God and love your neighbor.

VOL: One wonders if that applies to Archbishops Bob Duncan, Rowan Williams or Nicholas Okoh. Talk is cheap.

WILKEN: I think that the central message is: of man's sin ...his fallen condition - alienation from God, thereby loss of the image of God, thereby... And it's complete restoration in the Incarnation ... the perfect life -- sinless life ... death and resurrection ... the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And I think that is the central thread of Scripture. Am I wrong? 

JEFFERTS SCHORI: I think that is a piece of it. But clearly God is at work communities and contexts beyond the Christian one. If you see that as the primary thrust of the Jewish Scripture I think that is a misreading. Certainly the Jews are understood as "Chosen People" in our Biblical texts. God is clearly at work in all of creation and part of our task as Christians is to discern and affirm at where we find God at work beyond our comfortable places. 

VOL: In other words Christianity is not exclusively the way to the Father there are other pathways - Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu. The Presiding Bishop is on record saying she would never seek to convert a Muslim to Christ as their pathway to God is just as valid as her pathway, which, presumably, is still Christian. She also publicly denied the need for personal salvation.

WILKEN: The passage that I guess I go to repeatedly in taking that position is to Jesus, Himself, where He says: "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and no one comes to the Father except through Me." [John 14:6] Jesus is claiming to be the ONLY revelation of God; the ONLY revelation of the sacred in His Incarnation; and most certainly, the ONLY way to the True God. What are your thoughts there? 

JEFFERTS SCHORI: He also says in another place [John 10:16] that He has flocks, that He is called to care for flocks - sheep that aren't already in a particular fold, and that He has words of truth for them as well.

WILKEN: So what do you think He is referring to there, specifically?

JEFFERTS SCHORI: I think He is referring to people beyond our comfort zone. 

WILKEN: Beyond Christianity? 

JEFFERTS SCHORI: Could be...

WILKEN: Well, do you think it is beyond Christianity? 

JEFFERTS SCHORI: I think the work of Jesus has changed reality for all human beings whether they acknowledge themselves Christians or not. 

VOL: Scripture says, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed and no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit. (1 Cor. 12:3). So if she cannot say unequivocally that "Jesus is Lord", can she be called a Christian? Again St. Paul: "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." 

Jesus did not die on a cross "to change reality for all human beings," He came to change hearts and lives through his death and resurrection.

END

Issues, Etc. is Christ-centered, Cross-focused Talk Show Radio program of Lutheran Public Radio a ministry of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

WELS has not borrowed this graphic...yet.

Christian News Buries Follow Up on Joel Hochmuth on Page 17, Decries RC Homosexual on Page One

Joel Hochmuth gave WELS unprecedented visibility in the media,
all over the United States, with print and Net stories posted in many regions.
TMJ is not a dental station, but The Milwaukee Journal.

The January 2, 2012 issue of Christian News featured "U. S. Catholic Homosexuals, Lesbians, and Bisexuals May Be Christian, " on page 1. Another page 1 story involved Our Lady of Guadalupe. I thought I was getting The Wanderer, from conservative Roman Catholics. Christian News is supposed to deal with Lutherans, especially the "conservative" Lutherans of the Olde Synodical Conference.

But a follow-up to the biggest Lutheran scandal of the decade was buried even deeper than first notice. David Becker forwarded the Ichabod post on CN burying the story on page 7. The follow-up was posted on page 17. The next one will be on page 34.

Mrs. Ichabod said, "There is no page 34 in Christian News."

That is what I meant. The officials want this to be a non-story while they cluck their tongues about ELCA and the Church of Rome.

There are two journalistic tools for getting rid of the news. One is to spike the story, giving it no coverage at all. That can lead to pressure to give it space or time in the news. A sublter technique is to bury the story so far back in the periodical that few see it or pay much attention to it. If they do read it, the story seems insignificant because of its placement.

Puerto Rico?

Happy Birthday, Spener - You Won, For Now

Walther was a Pietist, almost starving himself to death with penitential suffering, when he wrote to Pastor Martin Stephan. According to official biographers, and Walther himself, Stephan gave him the insights into justification merged with atonement that became the core of his teaching. UOJ came to the Missouri Synod via Stephan at Halle University, Walther converted by Stephan.

The Saxon migration was a Pietistic enterprise, and the pastors were all Pietists in an age of rationalism.

Like the other ethnic groups that came to America, the Missouri Synod was led by Pietistic unionists who began to face their problems with the Book of Concord. Walther was not the Lutheran orthodox warrior who battled against the false teachers of his age. He was another Pietist who amalgamated his original education and life with a certain amount of Lutheran doctrine and practice. As one book says, the cell groups went away gradually. Pietism did not.

We all know that the cell groups came back with a shout of triumph. Halleluia. ELCA promoted them. Fuller knew they were the solution. Missouri, WELS, and ELS leaders met at Fuller Seminary to plot the final stages of Lutherdom's doom. They won without much of a fight. Cell groups are accepted as righteous medicine for all that ails.

Cell groups have promoted such evils in the Lutheran Church as:

• Pentecostalism
• Unionism
• Doctrinal indifference
• Women teaching men
• Women's ordination
• Despising the Means of Grace
• Rationalism
• Denigration of the divine call
• Lutheran papalism
• Entertainment Seeker Services
• Friendship evangelism
• Subjectivism - experience and emotions judging the Scriptures and Confess.

Important topics to study in relationship to Pietism are:

Spener's development of the cell group, borrowed from Labadie.

Halle established as the main center of Pietism, to teach Pietism.

Halle's rapid transformation to a center for rationalism.

Francke's exponential expansion of Pietism at Halle University.

Zinzendorf and Wesley.

Zinzendorf, Herrnhut, and Stephan.

Halle University, Knapp, Tholuck, Schleiermacher.

Famous Halle alumni - Muhlenberg, Stephan, Hoenecke.

How Pietism turns into secular activism (ELCA).

Pietism and the Church Shrinker Movement.

From Shrinker to "Emergent Church."

Virtual Tour of the Sistine Chapel, Where I Get Some of My Graphics. Oh No! Michelangelo Embedded a Copyright on the Floor. See For Yourselves.

http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistina_vr/index.html

Complete Rough Draft of Chapter Four - Luther versus the UOJ Pietists:

Note to ChurchMouse - the hat is thought to represent Herrnhut,
Stephan's Moravian Pietism.

Chapter 4 – Stephan’s Halle Pietism Became Walther’s Universal Objective Justification

            The official history of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod is full of deliberate, bald-faced lies about its origin. Central to the deception is the C. F. W. Walther mythology, tales and claims that portray him as The American Luther, when he was really the American Pope, a treacherous and criminal usurper, a divisive figure who forced his imprint upon the Synodical Conference. The often-told story is familiar to most conservative Lutherans. The Saxon immigrants came over to America with Bishop Stephan leading them. They suddenly discovered he was an adulterer and forced him out, with the brave and noble Walther taking over and leading them until his death. Although Stephan is always called a false teacher and Walther a champion of Lutheran orthodoxy, with details too murky to decipher, the truth is unsettling.

            Many will portray the facts about Walther as a personal attack, but the truth needs to come out, to set the so-called conservative Lutherans free from the yoke of synod worship and Walther mythology. For too long the statements of Walther have been used to define Scriptural interpretation. His writings have usurped the Book of Concord in the same way that he usurped the position of the bishop he swore to support, the documents he swore to follow in case of a dispute. Walther also set up minions who would repeat his opinions post-mortem until they were established as canon law, best exemplified in the position of UOJ in the Synodical Conference today.[1]

Martin Stephan’s Saga, Pietism and Syphilis

            Martin Stephan had a difficult early life, due to the effects of Roman Catholic persecution of Protestants, which prepared him for future hardships and the leadership of a Pietistic congregation.[2] He was born in Moravia in 1777, and Moravia was a center of Pietism. His pastoral sponsor was a Pietist, and so were his parents. He had to get by on his own for years, but he enrolled at Halle University for two years, 1804-06 “Although the University of Halle was no longer a center of pietism, it remained alive among some students even though rationalism was dominant.”[3]

He finished at Leipzig in 1809, the disruption in his schooling caused by the Napoleonic wars.

He served one congregation for a year and began his ministry at St. John’s in Dresden in 1810.

            St. John’s was a Pietistic congregation with a special charter to continue cell groups or conventicles when they had become suspect. The land for the church came from Count Zinzendorf, one of the superstars of Lutheran Pietism.[4] Stephan gloried in his cell groups, which are the essence of Pietism.[5]

Stephan was not a rationalist. At the time, the two major parties were the rationalists and Pietists. Since the Pietists emphasized Bible study and prayer, they attracted those who found no solace in human reason. Thus anyone who mentioned faith was accused of being a Pietist or a mystic.

Unfortunately, cell group leaders often become bewitched by their power over others. Stephan was unusually successful and well known. In court, testimony from his another woman stated that “among all those who followed Stephan there was the idea that if you entrusted  your spirit to him [Stephan] then you could also give him your body without committing a sin.”[6] Although some of his troubles came from his position as a successful Pietist, his other trials came from his immoral behavior. Accusations came at an early date in his ministry.

The book about Martin Stephan is honest about his problems with adultery, providing a considerable amount of evidence, which was known long before Stephan led 700 people to America “in pursuit of religious freedom.” He obviously wanted more than religious freedom, because he took his mistress, Louise Guenther, and his healthy son to America and left his wife at home – with all the sick children. The society paid for Stephan’s family to travel together to America, but he left them at home. Oddly, that son became the patriarch of some leading LCMS pastors, including one Lutheran Hour speaker, a singular honor.

Even in this age of hedonism, Stephan’s liberties were outrageous and well known. He was often caught taking evening walks with various women. He was investigated by the justice system numerous times. He installed a young woman in the parsonage attic and told his long-suffering wife it was none of her business – he was the master of the house.[7] When he took the cure at the spa, his mistress Louise lived with him. When his wife came to help, she was sent away and walked 20 miles home. The spa and the walks were excused because of his health, but why did he suffer so many chronic complaints?

Martin Stephan suffered from syphilis. He gave it to his wife, and passed it on to some of his children. Syphilis is the great pretender, mimicking one disorder and then another. A sore may appear at the first outbreak, but it goes away, giving false hopes of a cure. The carrier is still contagious even if his symptoms are difficult to discern at any given moment. Anyone with questions about this disorder should consult a physician and read the extensive information (with photos) on the Net. Reading the Stephan book and the Web sources will lead readers to an obvious conclusion.

Previous researchers have come to the same conclusion, but no one wants to admit that Walther and the other pioneers of Missouri Synod followed an obvious adulterer and covert syphilitic to America. The evidence demands this conclusion:

• Primary syphilis erupts with one or more lesions, painless and non-itchy, which go away in about three months. Stephan could have contracted the disorder and passed it to his wife while thinking (or hoping) it was nothing, once the initial lesion went away.
• Secondary syphilis shows itself with rashes, a major problem for Stephan. The rashes made him go for long evening walks and visit the spa for its comforting waters. Syphilitic rashes are very ugly indeed.  The disease attacks various organs, including the liver, brain, eyes and heart. The disease may become latent without treatment, with the rashes going away. The latent period can last many years. Modern medical sources do not agree about the syphilitic being contagious during that time, tempting the person to be careless.
• Tertiary syphilis means obvious neurological and cardiac problems, possible open sores in various parts of the body and on the skin. These lesions are hideous.
• Congenital syphilis is passed from the pregnant mother to the unborn child. Stephan’s wife was sickly and died before he did. Three of their daughters were deaf and had to be institutionalized. Deafness is one symptom of congenital syphilis. Newborns have many obvious symptoms, perhaps another reason for Stephan to leave his innocent children behind – their deformed bodies were a tragic testimony to his misdeeds.[8]
• Stephan was quite ill before leaving for America. He was also ill during most of the voyage.
• The violence of the upheaval against Stephan is not explained by a sudden revelation of adultery by two women, one of them his long-standing mistress, Louise. Historians concede that the colonists did not need to violate the confessional. Instead, it was likely the spread of syphilis in the colony that enraged the men and justified everyone in their violence and criminal actions. [9]
• Stephan’s subsequent decline after sleeping outside one night is another indication of his STD. Exposure would have lowered his fragile immune system and brought on the symptoms with new force. Louise Guenther, moved to Illinois to live with him and help him recover. He did not live much longer.

There must be evidence of the disease in the official record.

            Celestine was the first of three daughters born deaf, and all three were eventually placed in an institution.  The first boy named Martin died at the age of three weeks, the cause not known. A set of twin girls died at the age of six months, in 1831, no cause given. Two daughters grew up and were married, one of them dying young in childbirth.[10] The profoundly deaf daughters probably had congenital syphilis. Perhaps the three who died in infancy were also afflicted.

The father’s symptoms are illuminating. Stephan “suffered particularly from eczema and some kind of liver ailment, especially after 1832 when another set of twins died.”[11] Although the author does not attribute the problems of the children and the “eczema,” the cluster of symptoms certain points to syphilis. He used the nearby baths to soothe his rashes. His mistress Louise Guenther came to spa to help him and wrap his legs daily. His wife and daughters visited him but did not stay there. Louise did. The same woman helped him when he was cast out of the Perry County experiment and forced at gunpoint to cross to Illinois.

Stephan also took evening walks, accompanied by various people. Court records called them the equivalent of groupies. His behavior with various women on these evening walks was the subject of investigation before the great migration to America. He was doubly suspected of conventicle and immoral behavior. The earliest accusation of adultery was 1814, although this seems to have been dismissed or finessed away.[12]

Stephan’s evening walks and stay-overs at inns were also the subject of official investigation and ecclesiastical dismay in 1836.[13] Stephan ignored the obvious problems raised by abnormal behavior and irregular church practices. Like many successful pastors, he seemed immune to charges and oblivious to the damage he was doing. His long-suffering wife Julia testified in 1838 that Martin lived with Louis Guenther at the spa and the vineyard inn. “At present he has disassociated himself from me completely, and although I have offered him my hand in peace and consolation, my efforts in this regard have been in vain.”[14] Julia also testified that Martin installed a young woman named Sophie in the attic, persisting when Julia threw her out and locked the attic. He broke the lock and invited the girl back. The attorneys Marbach and Krause, and a few friends, knew about Julia’s testimony, so the leaders willingly left for America with an adulterous Pietist. Even if many did not know the full extent of Stephan’s promiscuity, his adoption of Louise Guenther as a substitute wife would have been clear to anyone. Julia Stephan’s testimony has been available since 1937, according to Philip Stephan, so the continued myth-making of the Missouri Synod is difficult to excuse.[15]

Stephan was still under investigation and under house arrest before the Dresden group left for America in early 1838.[16] The charges were suddenly dismissed and he was free to go with his groupies. Since the official charges and testimonies included the names of various women and situations, no one could honestly claim that Stephan’s adultery was suddenly and shockingly discovered after a particularly effect sermon. The lawyers Marbach and Krause knew what the testimony was; Marbach and Vehse also helped in kidnapping the niece and nephew of C. F. W. Walther. The Saxon immigration was not so much in pursuit of religious freedom as it was a flight from justice, with the two famous leaders – Stephan and Walther - both involved in criminal activities.

           

CFW Walther

C. F. W. Walther the Pietist

            C. F. W. Walther took control from a power-mad, adulterous false teacher—who made himself a bishop— and instituted an era of Lutheran orthodoxy combined with congregational autonomy. That deception is the foundational Missouri Synod myth. The facts contradict this fantasy, which continues to be told to the gullible when they visit the Shrine of the Immaculate Synod in Perry County, Missouri.

            Walther was the opposite of Martin Stephan in many ways. Stephan struggled to survive, after losing his parents and escaping from Roman Catholic persecution. He found work as a weaver, enrolled as a student at Halle University, but found his education broken up by war. Stephan’s early life is shrouded in mystery because of those hardships, but it is known that he lacked the complete classical education of Walther, the son of a pastor.

            Both men identified with Pietism, but this was the late stage of that movement, when rationalism had already taken over Halle University. George Christian Knapp was considered a leftover Pietist when he taught at Halle, yet he claimed the Trinity was a post-Biblical development! Rationalism already had a grip on him. Tholuck, who came later, the mentor of Adolph Hoenecke, confessed that he was a Universalist.  Both professors illustrate that the remnant conservatives of Halle were moving toward consistent Unitarian-Universalist rationalism. The clergy at the time were dominated by rationalist leaders who considered faith to be a sign of Pietism or mysticism, their two derogatory labels for conservatives.  Those who were more conservative felt persecuted, which was one reason to migrate to America.

            Walther earned his degree at Leipzig University in 1833, which was thoroughly rationalistic. His conservatism made it difficult to win approval from the examining board, but his connections helped him overcome that obstacle. Walther moved among Pietists because he was one. This account has Walther in a Pietistic cell group and participating in a conventicle where the professor was appointed by the leading Pietist of Europe, Spener’s heir, August Franke.

This handful of awakened students gathered on specific dates of every week for common prayer and for the common reading of Holy Scriptures to their edification and for a mutual exchange with respect to the one thing needful. For a while (at the invitation of August Hermann Francke), Professor Lindner also privately conducted a so-called Collegium Philobiblicum, in which he applied the Scriptures in an edifying manner and gave instruction in the derivation of servant themes from biblical texts. The students, who had come to faith and had withdrawn completely from the world, naturally had to submit to much ridicule and derision.[17]

Unfortunately, his guru put him and others through grueling self-denial, leaving him almost dead. He heard about Martin Stephan’s gentle, compassionate leadership and contacted him. Stephan did not practice the same severe kind of Pietism, so his initial letter of consolation brought great relief to the future leader of the Missouri Synod. Walther admitted that Stephan saved his life. Thus Walther and his older brother were drawn into the Stephan circle in Dresden. As a Pietist beaten down by legalism, he wrote to Stephan for comfort:

Walther still had not found the spiritual consolation he was looking for. Encouraged by his friends, he wrote to Martin Stephan, a notable confessional Lutheran pastor (sic) in Dresden. Stephan had preached the Gospel in an age of faithlessness and rationalism. His sermons and devotional exercises brought countless people to his church. Sometimes entire families walked many miles to attend his worship services.[18]

Walther wrote to Stephan, whose reply was well remembered by Ferdinand: “When I read his reply I felt as though I had been translated from hell to heaven. Tears of distress and sorrow were transformed into tears of heavenly joy.”[19] The content of that letter is remembered thus:

Stephan had shown him that the repentance [Busse] taught by the Law, which he sought, had already long taken place; that he was missing absolutely nothing other than the faith [in Christ]…so the peace of God entered in. And so he received the living absolution as a sinner with a broken heart.[20]

This conversion experience, conveyed through Stephan and Halle University, became the template for all of Walther’s work. The description is telling because Suelflow interprets the atonement as justification:

From this point on, this doctrine of forgiveness of sins through Christ’s death became the heart and soul of everything Walther preached, taught, and wrote. One can determine whether a doctrine (sic) is true or false only by exploring how it harmonizes with the article of justification.[21]

Therefore, the official biographies show that Walther began with Pietistic subjectivism, his own experience, using the Scriptures and Confessions to buttress his absurd conclusions. Martin Chemnitz was required to earn a doctorate in theology in order to serve as a bishop, but Walther is considered The American Luther on the basis of a bachelor’s degree from a rationalistic university and purgatorial experience among the Pietists.

            Cell groups are not merely central to Pietism – they are Pietism. Spener borrowed the concept from a Reformed leader, Labadie, who had been Roman Catholic. Those familiar with Roman Catholic devotional circles can recognize the similarity in emotional intensity and subjectivism: praying for hours, repeating the same mantras, and experiencing mystical ecstasy.[22]  Walther moved from the harsher Pietism to Stephan’s milder form. Stephan took great joy in his cell group ministry. The great migration took cell groups to Perry County and St. Louis. Undoubtedly Stephan’s grip on his subordinate ministers came from his spiritual dominance through those cell groups. The senior cell group guru knows the secrets of his followers and creates a powerful dependency in his subjects.[23] Lesser cell group leaders also have an inordinate influence over the lives of their charges. Some attribute Walther’s dictatorial attitude and need to control to his German culture. His spiritual birth and re-birth in Pietism probably contributed the greatest part of this dynamic. The dates and activities of the Society show that Walther simply took over control of the group by breaking all the rules he agreed to follow, doing so with deliberate deceit and unprecedented guile.

Kidnapping Two Children from His Father’s Home

            With the help of attorneys Marbach and Vehse, and the cooperation of the future Walther mother-in-law, Walther and his brother (another pastor in the group) kidnapped their niece and nephew from their father’s parsonage – while their father was deathly ill.

…Stephan issued an order for J. F. Buenger to remain in Germany with his mother. A daughter, Agnes, later Hermann Walther’s wife, also stayed. However, the profound sympathy which both Stephan and O. H. Walther professed for the unfortunate woman, six of whose children had already left or were leaving for the United States, did not prompt them to set her free by surrendering the Schubert children.[24]

The official Missouri Synod excuse, repeated at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, is: “The niece and nephew wanted to go to America.” Both children later died in America, perhaps without seeing their grandparents again. Even if this unverified childish wish were true, that would not justify breaking the law, because the grandparents were the legal, court-appointed guardians. Kinship kidnapping makes a mockery of the law, which is why arrest warrants were issued for Walther. His future mother-in-law Christiane Buenger  was arrested and interrogated, because Walther used her to hide the children. The attorneys Marbach and Vehse also helped in hiding the children and getting them to America. Like Jonah, Walther jumped an early ship and wasted money to get out of town fast.[25] His appointed ship was lost with all lives aboard in an ocean storm, crossing the Atlantic. That fact has fueled the ludicrous LCMS claim that God graciously spared the life of Walther to fulfill His great plans for the Missouri Synod. Forster claimed that the children were taken with knowledge and permission of the grandparents, but that is unlikely, given the arrest warrants for Walther and the imprisonment of Mrs. Buenger. Even if the grandparents had agreed, the Walther brothers had no legal authority to transport minor children to a new country. As Philip G. Stephan noted, the entire episode cast a shadow over the pastors, the emigrants, and the shipping company.[26]

In fact, many of the most famous names involved in the migration were lawless fugitives: Martin Stephan, C. F. W. Walther, O. H. Walther, Christiane Buenger, attorney Carl Vehse, and attorney Adolph Marbach (the last two brothers-in-law). The state authorities and church faithful might have been happy and relieved to see them leave the country. The Suelflow biography spins the initial felonies with an alarming lack of candor:

And now came the immigration. What to do with the Schubert orphans? The Walther brothers wanted to whisk them out of the country, so they transported the minors illegally, took them to Bremen, and entrusted them to the mother of John F. Buenger.[27]

O. H. Walther married one Buenger daughter (Agnes), who was widowed young and married Ludwig Fuerbringer’s father, Ottomar. Ferdinand married another Buenger daughter, Emilie. Mrs. Christiane Buenger was arrested and jailed for the Walther brothers. Ludwig Fuerbringer omitted the reason for her delay in coming to America in his Eighty Eventful Years.[28] Mrs. Buener contributed daughters for three future LCMS patriarchs, and also helped in secretly planning the riot which threatened, robbed, and kidnapped Stephan. Ferdinand also took over his brother’s congregation when O. H. died – Trinity in St. Louis. The chalice used by Trinity—and never returned—was the one stolen from Stephan.

            The entire Saxon migration was well thought out and thoroughly organized. Their plans and regulations were established and printed. Other groups might have collapsed and scattered during the twin crises of house arrest and kidnapping children. The only document left to sign was created and supported on the trip across. Landing in the Bay of New Orleans, the leaders gathered and voted for Martin Stephan as their bishop, which was announced January 14, 1839. Although C. F. W. Walther had resigned his position, he still signed as the “pastor of Braunsdorf.” His brother used a different wording – former pastor. On May 31^, 1939, Bishop Stephan was:

• accused,
• threatened with bodily harm,
• robbed of his money, extensive library, bedding, clothing, chalice, land,
• forced across the river at gunpoint,
• and left at a forlorn cabin with $100 and a few meager tools.

Walther was the leader of the revolt and the myth-creator. When the turmoil was over, he was the new bishop, but without the title. He was everything: in publishing, in teaching, in running the synod, in controlling the ministerium, and in Lutheran synodical politics. He became the American Pope

From Here to Rosebud: Syphilis Exposed

            Philip G. Stephan made a valid point in his book - the Saxon migration suffered from the same leadership crisis that many experienced in organized groups coming to America. Clergy and lawyers were prohibited from the New Ulm, Minnesota group because both professions were too divisive.  As reasonable as the theory seems, the events were far too explosive to be explained by sociology. Epidemiology is the most reasonable explanation. Stephan had an eye for unmarried women, and the leaders knew it.

            The curtain of myth in Zion on the Mississippi slips down to the floor in one admission, where the author conceded that Stephan was up to his old tricks in St. Louis – the same ones he employed in Germany. His female groupies were even more shameless in hanging around his abode.

It was only a matter of weeks after arrival in St. Louis before Stephan gradually began again to re-establish the way of life to which he had become accustomed in Germany. The Bishop always had a number of women staying with him at his residence in St. Louis…The nocturnal strolls were also resumed in St. Louis, although it does not seem that even the semblance of a religious gathering was given them there.[29]

That was bound to attract attention and a possible necktie party in St. Louis. The society was already being lambasted in Europe and America by various periodicals. At first the pastors defended their leader. Soon they changed their tune. Since adultery was not news, another development must have been the shocker.

            According to the hagiographers, Pastor Loerber gave such a good sermon on Rogate Sunday, May 5, 1839. Two women confessed their adultery with Stephan to Loerber after the service. One woman was Louise Guenther.[30] The other name or names are not clearly known. The reasons make sense if the real shocker was the spread of syphilis in their close-knit community.

            Like many synodical cover-ups, this one is full of holes. A casual examination of Stephan’s antics in Dresden, recorded by ecclesiastic authorities and the courts, witnessed by many, shows him already known as a promiscuous adulterer. At least one author reveals that Walther and Loerber did not violate the confidentiality of the confessional, because the adultery was already known![31] That is not much of a defense, because it means they all willingly followed an adulterer, a man who abandoned his sick wife and family, and they pledged their allegiance to him as a bishop.

            What changed? In Pursuit of Religious Freedom states that Stephan was quite ill before they left for America.  He was also accused of being lazy and not preaching during the ocean voyage.[32]

The most likely change was the period of latency being over just as they came to America. If he became contagious again, with the latency period ending, an outbreak of syphilis among the tight-knit group would have been explosive and alarming, especially in light of the attacks on them abroad and in St. Louis. The leaders changed from defending him to threatening his life. Syphilitic daughters would do that to anyone. Confirmation of this theory is well known among a few people in the LCMS. The subsequent loyalty to Walther was more likely based on his cover story—sparing so many from the shame Stephan brought to their families. Walther took the lead in providing a modified, limited hang-out (a Nixon era phrase), casting all the guilt upon one man, sparing the great enterprise and the reputations of their soiled doves, who would have been unable to have a healthy marriage and children after catching the evil pestilence from their bishop.

Walther’s Stealth and the Stephan Riot

            The real crisis was not the sudden discovery of adultery in May of 1839 but the multiple reports of syphilis among women in the Stephan migration. Contagious, final stage syphilis can create mood disturbances, like the bitter sermon on board the ship coming over, fatigue, and grandiose delusions. Many report that Stephan lost his common touch with the group when they arrived in America. He demanded special treatment and made poor decisions.

Walther began taking over immediately. His conduct was dishonest, unethical, contrary to the regulations they all agreed to follow when establishing their little Zion. Tragically, Walther’s conduct became the standard for the Synodical Conference and dominates today. Walther did not end the reign of the pietistic pope but took over his role.

Ferdinand’s first task on May 15th was to steal 40 acres of land from Stephan and organize the opposition. Walther traveled from St. Louis to Perry County without speaking to Stephan about the new accusations.  

Forster believed that Walther did not just go to change the deeds of land in Stephan’s name; Walther’s primary goal was to win support for a change in leadership. Walther deliberately ignored Stephan on this occasion. He was also spreading the “news” of Stephan’s misdeeds and building support for deposing Stephan. Soon to marry into the Beunger family, Walther stayed with them while in the Perry County settlement. He told them and other Society members to keep the secret of Louise Guenther’s confession and of their plan to depose him, so that Stephan would not be warned in advance. Walther said nothing to Stephan on this trip, nor did he speak to him privately. He had already determined that the bishop was guilty of the charges he had deduced from Guenther’s private confession.[33]

Walther removed the bishop’s name from the land title, which was fraud and outright theft. He was not able to do the same with the 80 acre parcel, which the bishop bought with his own money. Later, Walther tricked Stephan’s son out of the land. By May 27^th, 1839, the pastors were retracting their defense published in the German paper only one month before.[34] Walther, Keyl, Loeber, and Buerger signed the retraction and promised to depose the bishop.

Each of these events occurred between May 5 and May 27. They were carefully orchestrated in St. Louis by Pastors Loeber, C. F. W. Walther, and Keyl with the help of attorneys Vehse and Marbach, without any communication with the bishop about their concerns and charges.[35]

           

On May 28^th, the pastors led two groups, by steamboat, a total of 300, to Perry County,  including only those who agreed with them, another mark of Synodical Conference “discipline.” They by-passed their own council, which was set up in advance to deal with disputes. Instead, Walther led a kangaroo court and lynching party to Perry County.

            On May 29^th the pastors read their charges to Stephan, who insisted on the duly constituted group to deal with the accusations. The pastors refused this request and made that another accusation for their long list.

            On May 30^th they put a real estate agent, someone outside the Society, in charge of reading the deposition. They accused Stephan of fornication, adultery, misappropriating the trust fund, false doctrine, and refusing to submit to the new self-appointed group. Vehse insisted that Stephan had to leave at once, and Stephan refused. Subsequently, the mob vented its fury in a new series of illegal actions.

1. He was forced, due to physical threats from the crowd, to give up all claims and never return to the settlement.
2. The mob made him strip off his clothes so they could make sure they got all of his money. They robbed him of every cent, including a large sum, 4000 gold Thalers, saved for his retirement. They also took his personal effects, clothing and bedding, plus his valuable library of 1500 books.
3. The crowd built fires and lashed the home with their whips, so Stephan was forced to leave his home and sleep in a tent by the river.
4. He was forced across the river the next day at gunpoint, which is kidnapping, landed at a remote location, give $100 cash, a few tools, and decrepit cabin.

The Society gave itself a bonanza by taking Stephan’s gold, his cabin and land, his library, and his position. This gave Walther a chance to step into the same position, and exert the same kind of control.

Bishop Stephan was joined in Illinois by his mistress, Louis Guenther, who lived with him and cared for him. He had another setback from being forced to sleep outdoors overnight, another indication of his venereal disease.

Now finding him ill, she knew she had the strength he lacked to do what it took to stay healthy. She was young, only half his age, and previously nursed him back to health from a blistering case of eczema (sic). Little did she know that Stephan’s persistent pneumonia would get worse.[36]

He did some congregational work in Illinois and died in in 1846, buried in Horse Prairie (Red Bud), Illinois as the first American Lutheran bishop. He outlived his wife Julia, who died in Dresden in 1844.

            Walther engaged in many felonies, enough to disqualify himself from any responsible job today, let along leadership of a church body. Some excuse his crimes by saying it was an emergency situation, but that was not true when Walther was head of the little seminary and Stephan’s son came back from Europe to become a pastor. Walther talked young Stephan out of the 80 acres that belonged to the bishop. That was a new case of fraud and theft, not to mention a clear case of coveting. The land became sub-divided so the father was not able to regain control of it. Nor did he gain anything more than a pittance from going to court about the massive theft of his gold, books, and possessions.

            Young Stephan came back to America as an architect and also became a pastor. However, he recorded in a letter that Walther constantly undermined his work and his pastoral relationships. Walther called him a “Judas” in a classroom lecture for returning to Germany to care for his ailing mother, at her request. And yet, Walther had the temerity to tell Stephan to give up his 80 acres of land – a “fraudulent swindle.”[37] Nevertheless, Martin V became a pastor, designed the first Concordia Seminary building in St. Louis, and contributed in many other ways as a pastor and as an architect. Descendants continued to contribute, with one Stephan serving as the speaker for The Lutheran Hour, a singular honor in the Missouri Synod.

            Bishop Martin Stephan was an unrepentant, serial, adulterer. If he was a false teacher, as the pastors charged during his defenestration, then what were they  - for electing him bishop five months earlier and defending him in public one month earlier? The pastors accused him of embezzling money, even though he did not have direct access to the Society funds, and they continued to slander him about money without ever disclosing the real reason for their wrath – or admitting to their grand larceny.  When In Pursuit of Religious Freedom was published, Missouri Synod loyalists exploded in rage that the truth was damaging their carefully crafted mythology of the origins of the Missouri Synod. An instructive example can be found at this link, where Paul McCain attacked the author of the book, the webmaster, the mode of publishing, the American Lutheran Publicity Bureau, Norman Teigen, and various innocent bystanders who were trying to comment on the book:

http://www.lutheranforum.org/blogs/Rehabilitating_Martin_Stephan.

            Philip Stephan concluded that Bishop Stephan “brought centuries of pietistic faith and practice to those who founded the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. This pietism, rooted in the Moravian Brethren of his ancestors, was not at all rigid, enthusiastic, nor ascetic as he demonstrated by his intensely personal relationship with God.”[38] The Norwegians, Swedes, and Germans of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America were Pietists. The Germans of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod were Pietists. Each group struggled with the issues of Pietism versus the Lutheran Confessions. In many ways the Missouri Synod led the others with the publication of Luther and the Book of Concord, but the growing dominance of Universal Objective Justification, a legacy of Walther and F. Pieper, is a throwback to the Pietism of Halle, conveyed by Stephan to Walther and the Saxon migration.

           

           

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[1] The Synodical Conference officially broke up, but the three synods work together with the ELCA through Thrivent. Their dramatic loss of members and the decline of their schools will soon force some type of merger, although it may be dressed up in different clothes.

[2] Philip G. Stephan, In Pursuit of Religious Freedom, 2008, p. 25f (hereafter cited as IPRF). Martin’s parents died while he was a teen-ager. He and his sister fled home because of Roman Catholic oppression.

[3] IPRF, p. 32.

[4] Zinzendorf’s furtive trip to America (under a false name) caused Lutherans to send Henry M. Muhlenberg to America (from Halle) to serve them in 1741. Zinzendorf, who gave us the “Come Lord Jesus” table grace and two hymns, was controversial but also extremely influential. He was a bridge to Wesley and Methodism, a major influence on the pioneers of the Swedish Augustana Synod.

[5] Cell groups are Pietism, just as yoga exercises are Hinduism. The cell group is the real church, according to Pietists, a rejection of the Means of Grace. “There is also a family oral tradition about the hat drawn in the seal. It was believed that the hat represented the hat that Martin used when he preached. This preaching hat may have represented Herrnhut, which translated into English means ‘the hat of the Lord.’ Herrnhut was always an important place in the Pietist tradition. It was in Herrnhut where two families of Moravian Brethren came to live on the estate of Nicholas Ludwig, called Count von Zinzendorf. The count donated the land for their community that grew and then they built a church on the donated property that was near Dresden…Zinzendorf was born in 1790 only seventy miles from Dresden. He had a profound influence on the ‘awakening’ movement, on Pastor Stephan, and on the Bohemian founders of St. John’s Church in Dresden.”

#31, IPRF. p. 64.

[6] IPRF, p. 105. These records have been available since 1986 at the Concordia Historical Institute, where Dan Preus and Paul McCain have been directors. #18, ibid, p. 109.

[7] His wife kicked the girl out and locked the attic, keeping the key. Stephan broke the lock and re-installed the girl. Sad to say, many church officials imagine they also have the same rights and duties today, and their clergy pals look the other way.

[8] Hutchinson's triad is a common pattern of presentation for congenital syphilis. It consists of:  1. Interstitial keratitis, 2. Hutchinson incisors, 3. Eighth nerve deafness. Hutchinson's triad is named after Sir Jonathan Hutchinson (1828-1913). http://classictriads.com/hutchinsons-triad

[9] The neurological damage might have made Stephan less capable of dealing with the incredible tensions around him. At least one writer seemed puzzled that someone once so aware found himself uninformed and unaware. On the voyage across the ocean he was accused of doing little work. He also gave a severely critical sermon against his shipmates. Although exhaustion and depression might be understandable at that point, the symptoms also fit his STD.

[10] IPRF, p. 41f.

[11] IPRF, p. 79.

[12] IPRF, p. 82f. Philip Stephan is willing to believe the best about the bishop, but he is also frank about the many recorded situations with women.

[13] IPRF, p. 86.

[14] IPRF, p. 92f.

[15] IPRF, p. 94.

[16] IPRF, p. 102.

[17] August R. Suelflow, Servant of the Word, The Life and Ministry of C. F. W. Walther, 2000, p. 24.

[18] Ibid., p. 25. Stephan was a Pietist, not an orthodox, confessional Lutheran. Stephan nor Walther were both trained in a combination of Pietism and rationalism.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Ibid, p. 153. This sounds exactly like J. P. Meyer’s amalgamation of Objective Justification and making a decision for Christ, because the Wauwatoa professors of WELS were trained at Walther’s Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, where Walther’s experience became the ruling norm, especially with Francis Pieper in charge.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Lay cell group leaders soon adopt the posture of being ordained pastors, or even apostles, especially when they are women usurping authority from men. They are eager to destroy anything that gets in the way of their honor, power, and perks.

[23] The struggling new synod kept cell groups for a period of time. Cell groups rose up with a shout again in recent times because the liberal and unionistic leadership chose to unwrap a covert Pietism which never left the Missouri Synod.

[24] Walter O. Forster, Zion on the Mississippi, 1953, p. 197.

[25] Herman Melville’s preacher makes much of this fact, that “Jonah paid the fare” when he grabbed the ship sailing to the farthest corner of the globe, away from Nineveh. A guilt-free passenger would have dickered over the price. KJV Jonah 1:3 But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.

[26] IPRF, p. 131f.

[27] Suelflow, p. 36.

[28] Fuerbringer, 1944, p. 9.

[29] Forster, Zion, p. 355.

[30] Ibid., p. 392.

[31] Paul McCain: “I have examined the voluminous amount of evidence in the Concordia Historical Institute about the theological and moral failings of Stephan, and, to say the least, it is facile to suggest that he was the "victim" of the seal of the confessional being broken. The lie that the Saxons only knew of Stephan's infidelity because what was allegedly "confessed" has been spread by certain ALPB board members for some years.

http://www.lutheranforum.org/blogs/Rehabilitating_Martin_Stephan/

[32] IPRF, p. 139f.

[33] Ibid., p. 186.

[34] IPRF, p. 182.

[35] Ibid.

[36] IPRF, p. 229.

[37] Ibid, p. 269ff.

[38] Ibid., p. 265.

A brief history of pietism « Churchmouse Campanologist

This is an important topic, because Walther was a cell group Pietist
who joined Stephan's cell group Pietism,
borrowing his concept of UOJ from Stephan.

A brief history of pietism « Churchmouse Campanologist:


What follows is a brief history of pietism, a subject to which this blog intends to return with practical, modern examples.

Our churches today are full of ‘holy’ behaviours and small groups meant to reinforce them for the ‘true’ believer. I use these words advisedly, as orthodox Lutherans, Calvinists and Anglicans believe that it is only by grace through faith that a person is saved and comes to share eternal life with Jesus Christ.


'via Blog this'

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churchmousec (http://churchmousec.wordpress.com/) has left a new comment on your post "A brief history of pietism « Churchmouse Campanolo...":

Well said, LPC. Yes, it can be difficult to articulate the difference between the gracious fruits of faith and mandated legalism by the Revd A. N. Other.

The other thing I noted is the commonality of the following in pietism: outdoor revivals, small groups (!) and problems with the opposite sex. The last of these Dr Jackson has documented in detail and, consequently, got me interested in pursuing this subject further.

Hmm. Calvinists politely call pietism 'legalism', but there is a real set of moralistic stories here. Researching my upcoming posts made me rather queasy -- Wesley's and others' problems with women, the doctrinal church and secular law.

What I learned about pietism: 'Nature' abhors a vacuum. Satan stands by ready to fill it.

A Calvinist clergyman (now retired) commented either on my blog or his some time ago that the only church history 'these people' know are 'their own celebrities'. They know nothing about the foundations of the Reformation.

Churchmouse 

Katy Perry divorce: Removal vans clear Russell Brand's belongings after split | Mail Online

No Photoshop, no makeup.
Why didn't Glende loan her some bronzer?
Why didn't Ski transform Katy when he had the chance?

Katy Perry divorce: Removal vans clear Russell Brand's belongings after split | Mail Online:

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Pooches take the pulpit - USATODAY.com

Sassy watches every service,
but does not participate.

Pooches take the pulpit - USATODAY.com: "Father Roy Snipes has more assistance than most priests in Masses, counseling sessions and confessions: his dogs. The big mixed-breeds — sometimes as many as five of them — provide the extra dollop of warmth and joviality that can open hearts wider to receive the good father's message."

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